The question is whether this "something" is an "object" or a "mode of access". — Esse Quam Videri

I'm not sure why this is the question. Suppose we conclude that phenomenal experience is a mode of access. What is changed?

I look at a stone. I am aware of the stone, and I am aware of the visual experience of looking at the stone. Either awareness can be discussed. Ontologically the two are clearly different.

The indirect realist would then claim that the awareness of the visual experience is prior to the awareness of the stone. That awareness of the stone occurs secondarily, by way of, awareness of the visual experience . Is this move invalidated if the visual experience is deemed a mode of access?

1. We only have indirect perception of distal objects
2. We have direct perception only of mental phenomena — Michael

Once “mental phenomena” in (2) are understood thinly—as features of experience rather than objects in their own right—then (2) becomes perfectly compatible with direct realism, and it no longer does the work needed to support (1). To get (1), one needs the further premise that only phenomenally present items can be directly perceived. That premise isn’t delivered by science; it’s a philosophical assumption that, so far, has not been successfully argued for.

There have been many appeals to science in this discussion, but the philosophical question at issue is underdetermined by the science. Such appeals will never decide the issue since both sides fully accept it.

You don't understand what a person is telling you if they say they're cold? Odd — frank

It is odd from an everyday ordinary language (an other 'orthogonal') perspective to say that I don't know what you mean by cold. Actually I do understand from recalled personal experience of sitting on the peak of bald mountain mid-January night star gazing trying to avoid frost bite. That was cold.

But that content of the sensation of cold remains forever private. You can repeat what I said, but you cannot know how cold I felt.

Ordinary language is as broad and vague and ambiguous as is necessary to adopt it to a specific situational common context of discourse at that time and place. That context might or might not be reproducible for ostensible purposes. All red apples are red enough, but words for sheep clouds or a gorgeous sunrise do not convey the picture.

We have two semantically separate layers:

1) The stimulus-response conditioning of a particular individual, which fully explains that particular individual's verbal behaviour; he is indeed referring to a beetle in a box that only he can see.

2) An inter-subjective protocol for coordinating verbal behavior, where the correctness criteria defining the protocol is invariant with respect to every speaker's stimulus-conditioning, and so has no conception of beetles in boxes.

Hence if we say "In Michael's opinion, the water is cold", it would be a grave but popular philosophical misconception to think of this "opinion" as referring to a belief-state of Michael's in relation to a universally accessible truth; for every speaker can only accesses their private truth conditions and nobody elses, as determined by their personal and bespoke mental conditioning.

So instead, we should think of the above sentence as distinguishing Michael's stimulus-response conditioning from the rules of the protocol.

However, we might in accordance with our use of the protocol, decide "Michael is wrong, for the water is actually hot". In which case, we aren't talking about an epistemic error on behalf of Michael in the absolute sense of Michael having a false belief state in relation to a universal truth, rather we are simply referring to Michael's remarks being in violation of the rules of our protocol:

For if we accept that Michael's verbal behaviour is the causal expression of Michael's stimulus-response conditioning, then Michael cannot be literally intepreted as having a false belief in relation to a universal truth. All that we can allege when alleging epistemic errors, is that a person's verbal behaviour was in violation of our lovely communication protocol.

Is this move invalidated if the visual experience is deemed a mode of access? — hypericin

Yes, I think it is. Treating phenomenal experience as a mode of access invalidates the priority claim because it disqualifies it from playing the intermediary role that indirect realism requires it to play.

In order for indirect realism to go through it must posit something that can:

• be something you are aware of first, rather than only reflectively or introspectively
• stand in relations like priority, mediation, or inference,
• function as an intermediary

A "mode of presentation" cannot do that job. To say that phenomenal experience is a mode of presentation is to say that it characterizes the presentation of something else. This makes it derivative, non-intermediary and non-inferential.

A "mode of presentation" cannot do that job. To say that phenomenal experience is a mode of presentation is to say that it characterizes the presentation of something else. This makes it derivative, non-intermediary and non-inferential. — Esse Quam Videri

Is there an example you can give of this kind of "mode of presentation"? A TV is a "mode of presentation" of something else. Yet it also fulfills all the criteria for indirect realism you outlined.

Is there an example you can give of this kind of "mode of presentation"? A TV is a "mode of presentation" of something else. Yet it also fulfills all the criteria for indirect realism you outlined. — hypericin

A TV is not a mode of presentation in the sense I mean; it’s a mediating object. It has identity conditions, can be attended to independently of what it displays, and literally interposes itself between viewer and distal events. This is exactly the kind of ontological intermediary that indirect realism posits, and that direct realism rejects.

A phenomenological mode of presentation is different. It doesn’t add an object or act as a stand-in; it characterizes how an object is present. Seeing something as blurry or sharp, red or orange, looming or distant are not things you perceive first and then infer the object from. They are ways the object is given—features of the perceptual episode that can be thematized only upon reflection, not items that perception is directed at per se.

Seeing something as blurry or sharp, red or orange, looming or distant are not things you perceive first and then infer the object from. They are ways the object is given—features of the perceptual episode that can be thematized only upon reflection, not items that perception is directed at per se. — Esse Quam Videri

Might you be confusing the phenomenological impression of immediacy with actual immediacy?

For instance, consider an angry person. Their jaw is clenched, their brow furrowed, their face is reddened, their speech is loud and clipped. When a (neurotypical) observer sees an angry person, they don't think to themselves, "Hmm, these facial features, this tone of voice, is signaling anger to me". Rather, the anger appears immediate. Only on introspection can the observer articulate how they apprehended anger. But, this does nothing to disprove the ontologically indirect relationship between the observer and the anger. The observer apprehends anger only through apprehension of physiological cues, whether or not this apprehension is consciously visible to the observer.

I agree that there may be unconscious cue-integration or subpersonal inference involved in perceiving someone as angry. But that doesn’t establish ontological mediation. An inferential process does not by itself introduce an intermediary object of awareness; at least, not in the way required by indirect realism. The cues are not things I am aware of instead of the person; they are constitutive of how the person is perceived. So even if the perception is inferentially structured, it is still world-directed rather than mediated by an intervening object. Indirect realism needs more than hidden inference; it needs an ontological intermediary, and nothing like that has been shown.

To be clear, you would not argue that there is no ontological intermediary between the emotion and the observer? Plainly, the voice and body of the angry person is that intermediary, right? You are claiming that, unlike the body, phenomenology lacks the capacity to fulfill the role that the body plays in my example?

An inferential process does not by itself introduce an intermediary object of awareness; at least, not in the way required by indirect realism. — Esse Quam Videri

Why not? If there is an inferential process, there must be something upon which the inference is made. The precise characterization of the ontological status of phenomenology is difficult to resolve. But does indirect realism need to make this characterization? I say it only needs to claim that phenomenology has ontology, distinct from the distal object it stands in relationship to. And, that it can be attended to, distinctly from attendance to the object.

You are claiming that, unlike the body, phenomenology lacks the capacity to fulfill the role that the body plays in my example? — hypericin

I do think this is a dis-analogy, but I agree that someone can press it to its logical conclusion if they’re willing to accept the consequences. My point isn’t that no coherent position can be built on top of that assumption, but that adopting it involves a substantive philosophical commitment—namely, treating perception itself as evidential and inferential in the same way we treat our access to other minds. That move isn’t forced on us by the phenomena or by science; it’s an optional interpretation with significant costs. My claim is only that indirect realism requires taking on that commitment, not that it’s internally inconsistent.

If there is an inferential process, there must be something upon which the inference is made. The precise characterization of the ontological status of phenomenology is difficult to resolve. But does indirect realism need to make this characterization? I say it only needs to claim that phenomenology has ontology, distinct from the distal object it stands in relationship to. And, that it can be attended to, distinctly from attendance to the object. — hypericin

I agree that if there is inference, there must be something the inference operates on. What I deny is that whatever plays that subpersonal or experiential role thereby functions as an epistemic intermediary. Indirect realism requires more than ontological distinctness and reflective attendability; it requires that phenomenology be what perception is of in the first instance, and that access to the world be achieved by way of it.

My objection isn’t that phenomenology lacks ontology or structure—it’s that treating it as an intermediary rather than a mode of access is a substantive philosophical claim that needs justification. Simply asserting that inference operates on phenomenology does not yet establish indirect perception unless phenomenology is shown to occupy that mediating role rather than merely implementing perception.

I very explicitly said that John and Jane agree that the bath water is 37°C but disagree as to whether this 37°C water is hot or cold.

You seem to be intentionally engaging with a strawman. — Michael

No straw man - I was questioning why the topic came up... it is the fact of their disagreement that is salient.

You appear to have stoped addressing the actual material before you.

Indirect realism requires more than ontological distinctness and reflective attendability; it requires that phenomenology be what perception is of in the first instance, and that access to the world be achieved by way of it. — Esse Quam Videri

Lets examine the case of ambiguous sensory input.

You are in a friend's apartment while she is away. You hear wind chimes. You are puzzled, the apartment is on the 10th floor. Could that be her phone? No, she wouldn't leave it behind. Ah, it must be her door bell. You open the door, and indeed someone is waiting.

Do you agree that in this case:

* The phenomenology, the sound of wind chimes, is ontologically distinct from the distal object, the doorbell.
* Awareness of the phenomenology is distinct from, and prior to, awareness of the distal object.
* Awareness of the distal object occurs through awareness of the phenomenology, by way of inference.

The thing that makes this discussion so difficult is that both parties accept the same underlying causal story, but interpret it in different ways.

Consider the following crude diagram of the situation you described above where D = doorbell, C = causal medium, S = sound, Ch = chiming, I = inference, H = hypothesis and V = verification:

D → C₁ → C₂ → … → Cₙ → S → Ch → I → H → V

Basically what this diagram says is that there is a causal chain originating at the doorbell (D), moving through a series of causal mediums (air molecules, sound waves, neural activations, etc.) to the production of a sound (S) that is experienced as a chiming (Ch), after which the agent infers (I) the hypothesis (H) that the doorbell caused the chiming and verifies (V) that hypothesis by opening the door.

I can't speak for everyone here, but I'm guessing pretty much everyone would accept this chain more-or-less as-is. The part where things get messy is in the epistemic interpretation of this chain. We can see this in the way that a direct realist and an indirect realist might answer the following questions:

What is directly perceived?

• DR: doorbell (D) as-chiming (Ch)
• IR: chiming (Ch)

What is the role of inference (I)?

• DR: Refines understanding (i.e. sharpens identification of what is already perceived)
• IR: Constitutes access (i.e. supplies epistemic access to the distal object)

What is the role of the hypothesis (H)?

• DR: Causal explanation (i.e. explains why the perceived object is chiming, not whether there is a distal object at all)
• IR: Route to the world (i.e. licenses commitment to a distal object rather than merely explaining an already perceived one)

What is the role of verification (V)?

• DR: Further world-directed perception (i.e. perceptual engagement that settles identification)
• IR: Further phenomenal evidence (i.e. additional experience requiring interpretation)

What is the epistemic base?

• DR: world-directed perception
• IR: phenomenal experience

I realize that my answers on behalf of the IR above will likely be seen as a straw man. That isn’t my intention. The goal here is not to put words in anyone’s mouth, but to offer an analysis of why this discussion keeps looping despite broad agreement on the causal story.

No straw man - I was questioning why the topic came up... it is the fact of their disagreement that is salient. — Banno

I think I explained it quite clearly here:

Here are two propositions:

1. The 37°C water feels cold₁
2. The 37°C water is cold₂

My claim is that "cold₁" refers to a sensation and that if (2) means anything it means the same thing as (1). — Michael

You then responded with the below strawman:

That John and Jane disagree as to the temperature of the bath is not a fiction; it's something to be explained. This is lost in your account. — Banno

To get (1), one needs the further premise that only phenomenally present items can be directly perceived. — Esse Quam Videri

That's the definition of "direct perception" as used by traditional direct realists and indirect realists. When they say that "we (don't) have direct perception of ordinary objects" they are saying that "ordinary objects are (not) phenomenally present". This is why these traditional direct realists were naive colour realists.

The epistemological concern was that we can only be justified in believing that the world "really" is as it appears to us if ordinary objects are phenomenally present. If they're not, as indirect realists claim, then the world might be radically different to how it appears. We now know both that ordinary objects are not phenomenally present and that the world is radically different to how it appears, hence indirect realism being the scientific view of perception.

One is then supposed to conclude (incorrectly) that the visual experience is an illusion.

I'm willing to be incorrect, but my understanding of indirect realism is not that visual (or auditory e.t.c.) experience is an illusion per se, but more that it is not the exact same as the object that is experienced. If I perceive a cat on my windowsill then that is a mental event that is completely separate from (although far from necessarily an inaccurate representation of) something real.

It’s interesting stuff, sure, but it is not sufficient to give me pause because humans have looked in the brain and have seen no images or anything that constructs images. — NOS4A2

Either you believe we literally take images into our heads from the outside, or we have absolutely, 100% without a shadow of a doubt, seen, in the brain, the infrastructure for creating mental images/representations. One of those needs to be true (but this doesn't determine an IR/DR perspective. It just is the two options available based on the fact that we aren't the images we 'see'). It would be helpful to know which you think is the case..

If humans don’t see light why do we have lightbulbs? — NOS4A2

I'm not quite sure what work this question is doing? Light provides the eyes with data. Without the light, there is no data. Though, it does seem we can literally see light in the form of photons. Not sure that changes anything - the point is that without photons bouncing off an object, we wouldn't become visually aware of it. If that doesn't give you pause, I guess I feel like you're not sufficiently in touch with the problem. Onward...

If I’m having hallucinations I’m going to get a second opinion — NOS4A2

How would you know you were having an hallucination? How would you know the second opinion was 'accurate' and as against what? Consensus? That's fine, and also what I would do - but it's not supportive of a DR position.

While you and Michael claim there is the proverbial veil blocking us from direct access to the world, I say that the veil blocks your access to the goings on of your own brain. I say this for the simple reason that the senses point outward. — NOS4A2

This is quite clearly incoherent: If we are veiled from the actions of our brain, we have no possible access to the outside world. We do not see things in our eyes - our eyes literally ships electrical signals to our brain. Without hte brain there is no possible mental image (or whatever you'd like to call it). Eyes (i.e the sense organ) objectively see/present nothing but "code" for lack of a better term. They do not contain or receive images. This much is an empirical truth and not part of the philosophical disagreement - which is why it seems to me you (and others) are not quite coming into contact with the facts prior to trying to determine some epistemic situation (there is a big spanner to this approach, but its not hard to overcome).

Again, this is why we have sophisticated imaging contraptions, specialized doctors, and brains in jars: so that we can better understand what is occurring in there. — NOS4A2

A clear mistake. Our senses are still our only access to any of this. None of it brings us closer to the objects we study in the epistemic sense. If there's a veil in the sense you want to call it (we don't), then that's present when you look down a microscope or interpret dye results etc..

claiming there exists things in the head that cannot be proven to exist, but because you believe you have a superior epistemological grasp of what is occurring behind your senses rather than in front of them. — NOS4A2

I don't even think you're in touch with the competing view point.

There are no "objects" in the head. That has never been claimed, so let's be clear: The images we see are there, whether or not you claim they are generated by the brain or not. If you're claiming they are not generated by the brain, you have a world of philosophy and neuroscience to battle against and an incredibly uphill battle it is, to explain how it is the apple on my table gets into my head(read: experience, i guess, noting hte empirical facts of perception).

Banno has understood this and made a different, more successful argument. I'd look there.

I do get the impression you both feel that scientific discoveries demand that we should accept the metaphysical picture that indirect realism seems to draw. — Richard B

Not quite, but it gives a default understanding which we would do well to be skeptical of displacing on philosophical grounds imo.

As indirect realism retreats into private first person experiences, science needs to find consensus in the public realm. — Richard B

This is an extreme error. Science doesn't 'need' to find anything, whatsoever. It follows a method and 'come what may'. In this case, we now understand that we do not receive images from without, but light which is turned into electrical signals, which go the brain - and then we have work to do. This isn't controversial. The fact that humans have private experiences is a fact, and not one which discussions of perception can do much for. There is no way for me to have your experiences.

If hydration directly processes H2O, why can't we say perception directly processes light? — Richard B

Because they are in no way similar processes, physically speaking. Different forms, substances, substrates, organs, results etc... It's a really bad analogy, is the reason this probably was not picked up.

You might say, we should keep "realism" and drop "direct/indirect" and understand we are causally embedded biological organisms whose process of perception supports interventions, coordinations, and manipulations of our environment. — Richard B

You might, but this would be to entirely miss the point of the question (which i think you're entire point about science does) by completely and utterly ignoring the fact that there is no answer anywhere in this discussion as to where we are to consider factually mediated perception direct or indirect. This is a matter of comparison and "the best we can do, in this particular realm where language is important for stability".

You're not even wrong. And I should stress this more clearly: When practicing science, with other scientists, consensus is king. That says nothing about the state of DR/IR theories. That we have shared perceptions (assuming everyone's system in a given thought experiment works right isn't controversial either). If DR is 'true' (or, the best description) this would be how it happens. If IR is 'true' (or, the best description) then this is how things work.

Neither theory runs against reality. That's why it's such a tense question. I understand the temptation to say what you're saying, but it just doens't touch anything. You're talking about standards and method. The thing Michael and I are, at the least trying to get you guys to deal with properly, is the fact accepted by both camps that there is no possible way for the apple on my desk to be in my head, and it snot possible that my mind is included in the objects it perceives. So there's gap - simple as.

That is, if I speak falsetto, you can say that is not my "real" voice. If you want to say that my real voice is what you hear when we're next to each other talking, but a recording of my voice isn't my real voice, that's fine. But none of that suggests there is this metaphysically true voice that can be meaningfully (and by "meaningfully" I mean that can be identified and discussed coherently) identfied.

Identifying that "real" voice is impossible. Is it the vibrations, the way you hear it, the way your ear drum vibrates? Is it still "real" if through helium? — Hanover

Hmm, I got you. I don't think this is doing a lot, because I can simply say your examples require other modifiers "speaking voice" in the first, or "tessitura" to be more technical.

It seems to me there is nothing missing or hard to grasp (i.e to talk about) in these uses. But i recognize 'use' gives meaning to things - I just, personally, hold that htis is an absolute cop out. If there were truly the way words 'worked' then no words would have shared meanings because anyone's personal use would be valid. But we correct each other. So there is some epistemic primacy to some uses, and I think thats far more widespread and meaningful than a lot do.

What you do call the difference between hearing your wife's 'real' voice when you're two feet away, and a recording from 2022 when you're on another continent?

But none of that suggests there is this metaphysically true voice that can be meaningfully (and by "meaningfully" I mean that can be identified and discussed coherently) identfied. — Hanover

This is exactly my intuition and experience. I can't understand what you think leads to this ambiguity? Either i'm hearing your voice, or a recording of it (which a phone call technically is). Nothing weird or airy fairy there, to me?

Dbl post. My apologies.

I think I explained it quite clearly here: — Michael

Yes, it's pretty clear. You want to finesse the grammar of cold into cold₁ and cold₂, a contrast which is marked in by differentiating being cold from feeling cold. I would instead draw attention tot he fact of disagreement that makes making the contrast notable.

No straw man, but a different discussion.

That's what is behind my

If “X is cold₂” just means “X causes cold₁ sensations in me”, then:

*instruments don’t measure cold, only predict feelings
*disagreements are merely parallel reports
*learning temperature terms requires introspection
*correction becomes impossible except as etiquette

That is not how the language works, and it is not how science or ordinary life proceeds.

That is orthogonal to the earlier dispute. — Banno

as well as:

If “hot”, “cold”, “painful”, “harmful”, etc. were mere fictions, then safety thresholds, medical advice, engineering tolerances and so on would all lose their point. Science would be answering questions no one had. That John and Jane disagree as to the temperature of the bath is not a fiction; it's something to be explained. This is lost in your account. — Banno

Collapsing cold₁ and cold₂ renders "cold" impotent.

instruments don't measure cold. They measure temperature.

That is a glaring misstep. Temperatures do not have 'cold' to refer to. Neither hot, nor warm or any other experientially-bound concept.

, maybe. But hang on. We do look at a thermometer to see if it is cold. How then is it that thermometers do not measure cold? There's an equivocation here that allows thermometers to both measure and not measure cold.

Either you believe we literally take images into our heads from the outside, or we have absolutely, 100% without a shadow of a doubt, seen, in the brain, the infrastructure for creating mental images/representations. One of those needs to be true (but this doesn't determine an IR/DR perspective. It just is the two options available based on the fact that we aren't the images we 'see'). It would be helpful to know which you think is the case..

I believe neither of your two options. Why do you think we see images, take images into the head, or create images/representations, when neither of the above have been found in any skull in the history of mankind?

This is quite clearly incoherent: If we are veiled from the actions of our brain, we have no possible access to the outside world. We do not see things in our eyes - our eyes literally ships electrical signals to our brain. Without hte brain there is no possible mental image (or whatever you'd like to call it). Eyes (i.e the sense organ) objectively see/present nothing but "code" for lack of a better term. They do not contain or receive images. This much is an empirical truth and not part of the philosophical disagreement - which is why it seems to me you (and others) are not quite coming into contact with the facts prior to trying to determine some epistemic situation (there is a big spanner to this approach, but its not hard to overcome).

Data, code, images. It seems to me you (and others) are just making stuff up because you have yet to tell me what those words refer to, their properties, or describe a single thing about them. If you’re beholden to the facts and I am not, then it should be easy; there are plenty of things in the body you could list that are worthy of those terms. We have fairly comprehensive, anatomically correct diagrams, scans, images of brains, so why won’t you educate me of those facts and point out what the image, the code, and the representation is? If it’s not an object, then what is it?

There are no "objects" in the head. That has never been claimed, so let's be clear: The images we see are there, whether or not you claim they are generated by the brain or not. If you're claiming they are not generated by the brain, you have a world of philosophy and neuroscience to battle against and an incredibly uphill battle it is, to explain how it is the apple on my table gets into my head(read: experience, i guess, noting hte empirical facts of perception).

The images we see are there…where? Grab an image of the brain (a real one and not one generated by your brain), and show us. It should be simple because you claim to already have these so-called facts.

I'm willing to be incorrect, but my understanding of indirect realism is not that visual (or auditory e.t.c.) experience is an illusion per se, but more that it is not the exact same as the object that is experienced. If I perceive a cat on my windowsill then that is a mental event that is completely separate from (although far from necessarily an inaccurate representation of) something real. — Nichiren-123

If the cat came to you, and you patted him, then he is real. But if you saw the cat, and it either vanished into nowhere, or became a dragon, then it could be your mental event for illusion. There are different cases of seeing and hearing depending on the circumstances of perception and sensation.

..not that visual (or auditory e.t.c.) experience is an illusion per se, but more that it is not the exact same as the object that is experienced. — Nichiren-123

Well, the word 'experience' (or 'perceive', 'aware of' etc) has two different senses. In one sense, there's this mental event that arises in your brain when your sense organs respond to light or sound etc. That's what constitutes an experience. But the experience is also about something, such as the cat that you see or hear. Your brain does not construct the cat, its features, the light rays, or sound waves etc. Your sense organs respond mechanically to the way available light reflects, or the way available sound waves propagate, depending on the physical features of the cat. The cat that you see or hear is the experience in its intentionalistic sense.

Now use the word 'experience' ambiguously between the two different senses, and it might seem as if the cat that you see or hear somehow still depends on your mental event. Indirect realism is the assumption that you never experience the cat, only your own mental representation. It's a fallacy of ambiguity.

If I perceive a cat on my windowsill then that is a mental event that is completely separate from (although far from necessarily an inaccurate representation of) something real. — Nichiren-123

The perceiving is a mental event, but the cat is not. You see the cat, not a representation. The question whether your experience is accurate, partly accurate, or inaccurate is therefore dissolved.

For if we accept that Michael's verbal behaviour is the causal expression of Michael's stimulus-response conditioning, then Michael cannot be literally intepreted as having a false belief in relation to a universal truth. All that we can allege when alleging epistemic errors, is that a person's verbal behaviour was in violation of our lovely communication protocol. — sime

A statement like "I feel hot." is about one's own bodily state and the content of sensation. It has nothing to do with the world outside one's own body and mind. There is no truth or falsity value in that type of statement.

If one heard that statement, one can only conclude his/her body is feeling hot. That is all there is to it.

We now know both that ordinary objects are not phenomenally present and that the world is radically different to how it appears, hence indirect realism being the scientific view of perception. — Michael

This deflates the traditional claims of indirect realism to the point of triviality. Nothing you've said here is incompatible with a direct realism that acknowledges both that phenomenal qualities are not properties of worldly objects and that perception is casually mediated. Neither of these is sufficient to decide the issue.

This is because the question is not about casual mechanisms or color realism, but about what kind of thing can play the role of the object in acts of perception. Indirect realism requires that a private mental intermediary play this role, whereas the direct realist rejects this as both inadequate and unnecessary. It is inadequate because it can't explain the normativity of perception, and it is unnecessary because worldly objects are perfectly capable of playing this role themselves.

This is why these traditional direct realists were naive colour realists. — Michael

I'm afraid that philosophers are not immune from the temptation to coin descriptions of doctrines they disagree with that have a rhetorical effect on those who believe in them.

We now know both that ordinary objects are not phenomenally present and that the world is radically different to how it appears, hence indirect realism being the scientific view of perception. — Michael

How do we know that the world is radically different from how it appears? From our senses, that is, from the way the world appears to us.

The perceiving is a mental event, but the cat is not. You see the cat, not a representation. — jkop

Exactly. The idea that the world is actually different from the way it appears does not come from comparing it with anything, which is impossible.

If one heard that statement, one can only conclude his/her body is feeling hot. That is all there is to it. — Corvus

Well, there is behaviour as well.

Well, there is behaviour as well. — Ludwig V

Behavior is random and would be too subjective for interpretation. But when Jane says cold, and John says hot, Jane can infer that John's bodily sensation for temperature is different from Jane's, and vice versa. That is all there is to it.

Behavior is random and would be too subjective for interpretation. — Corvus

That's odd. That's exactly how I feel about what people say. I would much rather trust how they behave. Actions, as they say, speak louder than words.